The Four Rings of the Apocalypse
by CastielLovesDean
Summary: Season 5 Spoilers. Now that Sam and Dean have collected all 4 Horseman Rings, what can they do with them?  AT end of S5


**The Four Rings of the Apocalypse**

_By CastielLovesDean_

AN: As I was re-watching My Bloody Valentine, I remembered War's ring and thought that TPTB might be going somewhere with that. It gave me this idea.

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This isn't the first time they've been backed into a corner, but it's a pretty bad one with no conceivable way out. This time it's all four of them: Sam, Dean, Bobby, and Cas. Castiel is still pretty useful, even without his demon-smiting abilities, but they would be very much appreciated right about now. Even so, he proves that he can wield a firearm with the best of them.

Dean can't count how many demons there are, but he can count how much rock salt, holy water, and ammunition they have left: none, none, and three rounds, respectively. After that's gone, it's just Ruby's knife, four lame shotguns, and a quickly-crumbling circle of rock salt that stands between his family and certain death.

Piece of cake.

Bobby pumps the last three rounds of ammo into the demon towering over him as Sam continues stabbing the demons and their victims, and Dean and Castiel resort to clubbing them with their shotguns. As Bobby, too, ends up using his shotgun as a stick, he's endowed with a sense of Déjà Vu, zombies and a small closet springing to the front of his mind. He grouses internally that Sam got himself stuck with them and is not available to mount a last-second rescue.

Bobby, Dean, and Castiel psychically agree to use their shotguns to herd the demons toward Sam, who kills them with his knife. Unfortunately, there are many demons, and the knife gets ripped out of Sam's possession. Sam makes a third attempt to exorcise them en masse, but once again his efforts are thwarted by the need to focus on not letting anyone die.

"Cover me!" Dean shouts, retreating into the middle of the three people in the world who mean the most to him. He knows he has to have another trick up his sleeve. After all, he knows it's the Apocalypse, and if he doesn't have a backup-backup-backup plan, he isn't doing his job. He roots around in his pockets, hoping to find something he's sure isn't there, and surprises himself with a thought as he hears something clink. He pulls his hand out, coming up with four rings: the ones they took off the Horsemen. "The rings!" he exclaims.

"What?" the other three ask in unison.

"The rings we got from the Horsemen! Maybe we can use them!"

"Dean," Sam bitches, "those things are evil! Haven't you seen Lord of the Rings?"

"No," Dean scoffs, "I was too busy getting laid!" He tries one anyway. He slips one of the remarkably nondescript bands on his recently-naked right ring finger and concentrates on something bad happening to the demons. At first, nothing changes, but after several seconds, Dean sees the demons farther away becoming covered in bugs.

Plague. Great. What a useless fucking ring.

He removes the ring and hands it to Sam. "Here's yours," he says with a smirk. As if he'd trust what could be their best shot at survival with the guy that lost the knife. He hands two more at random to Cas and Bobby, sliding the last one on his own finger. The others are just as curious as he is to find out who has which ring.

Sam finds out pretty quickly, whining, "Plague?!"

"War!" Bobby cheers with uncharacteristic enthusiasm as a couple of demons start going at each other's throats for a change.

"Famine," Cas states with an annoyed scowl.

Dean can't blame him; that one's even more useless than Plague. In fact, Famine doesn't generally have an effect on demons, unless you count it making Sammy eat them, so it was worse than useless: it was counterproductive. Strangely compelled to round out the conversation, Dean deduces that he must have gotten, "Death."

Before Dean can figure out how useful this ring can be against a demon army, the wind picks up in a strange way, and they hear a disembodied voice declare, "By your powers combined...." All at once, the demons vacate their victims in a massive cloud of black smog, and the surviving humans collapse to the ground. Standing amongst the fallen people is a smug-looking pale man wearing a strange red outfit. "...I am Eric Kripke!"

"Who?" Bobby asks.

"One of the lesser-known names of God," Castiel clarifies reverently upon one knee, grasping Dean's glowing necklace.

"God is Captain Planet?" Dean mocks.

"I said your _Bible_ gets many things wrong, Dean," Cas admonishes.

The world is shortly thereafter saved by God/Captain Planet/Eric Kripke.

And, of course, Dean and Castiel live happily ever after. So do Sam and Bobby, but with significantly less gay sex.

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Fin. Reviews, please!


End file.
